The use of watercrafts where a user is standing upright on an upper surface of a floating board, such as a stand-up paddleboard or SUP, has become a popular recreational activity. Stand-up paddling may be performed under a variety of conditions, lending to its widespread appeal and participation from a wide range of demographics. Modern stand-up paddling, whether applied to surfing ocean waves or rivers, paddling distances across still bodies of water, or fishing from atop the SUP, originates from the Hawaiian Islands. The legendary Duke Kahanamoku was one of the pioneers of the sport, standing on his surfboard and using a paddle to steer the board in order to gain better views of incoming swells. Since then, stand-up paddling has evolved into a sport enjoyed by surfers and nonsurfers alike and many advances in equipment options and features as well as paddleboard construction have emerged over the last decade.
Modern stand-up paddleboard equipment includes a large SUP that may be formed from a variety of materials including polyurethane or polystyrene foam cores surrounded by a fiberglass or epoxy shell. Alternatively, the SUP may be formed from a plastic such as polypropylene or polyethylene with a soft upper surface. In other examples, the SUP may be inflatable and made from a combination of rubber, PVC, urethane, and polymer, or from a drop stitch material. The SUP may be steered by the user via a paddle held in the hands of the user and formed from fiberglass, wood, carbon fiber, aluminum, or plastic.
In calm waters, the SUP may be configured to be long and wide, relative to a size of the user, to provide stability so that the user may maintain balance while standing or sitting on top of the SUP easily. However, with SUPs used for more rigorous applications, such as surfing waves or traveling along a river with rapids, a width of the SUP, and in some examples also a length, may be reduced to allow more efficient steering and navigation. The reduction in width may result in a loss of stability and adjustments of the user's positioning on the SUP to compensate for the reduced stability may be desired to maintain the user's balance and improve control of the SUP's movement. In particular, a wider stance may be adopted by the user to spread a center of mass of the user. In active waters, however, when the user's feet approach side edges of the SUP, a likelihood that the user's feet may slide off the side edges is increased due to turbulent motion of the SUP as well as loss of traction resulting from water spraying across the upper surface of the SUP.
One example approach to address the sliding of a user's feet on a SUP surface includes adapting the upper surface with devices to retain a position of the user's feet. One such approach is shown by Lazarovits in U.S. 2014/0017963. Therein, a SUP includes foot securing devices that have a concave configuration in the upper surface of the SUP, adapted with a padded surface under the user's feet within the foot securing devices. The foot securing devices may include straps extending across tops of the user's feet to constrain a position of the feet within the foot securing devices. The devices may generally conform to a shape of the user's feet and secure the feet in a single, fixed position on the upper surface of the SUP.
However, the inventors herein have recognized potential issues with such systems. As one example, the user's feet are secured in the single position determined by the arrangement of the foot securing devices once the feet are inserted without an option to vary an orientation of the feet within the foot securing devices. If turbulent waters are encountered or adjustment of the user's weight distribution along the SUP to facilitate maneuvering of the SUP is desired, the user's feet may be shifted to other positions to maintain balance. However, adjustment of the feet to such positions may result in removal of the user's feet from the foot securing devices. A likelihood of the user's feet sliding away from targeted foot positions as well as the user falling off the SUP is thus increased.
In one example, the issues described above may be addressed by a binding system for a watercraft, comprising panels extending alongside edges of the watercraft, tensioning members interfacing respectively with the panels and adjustably tensioning the webbing, pockets respectively formed by the webbing, between the panels and a surface of the watercraft, shaped to allow a user's foot to be temporarily wedged therein and further to allow the user's foot to slide along the edges while engaged in the pockets. In this way, a user's stability and balance may be improved while standing on the watercraft.
As one example, the binding system includes panels that may be attached to side edges of the watercraft, or SUP, and wrap around the side edges to extend a distance across an upper surface of the SUP. The panels may also extend a distance along a length of the SUP and a user's feet may be placed in pockets between the panels and the upper surface of the SUP at any point along a length of the panels. Tension on the panels may be generated by configuring the binding system with straps extending along the length of the panels that may be tightened or loosened with buckles. The binding system may thus provide secured positions for foot placement that are continuous along the length of the panels, allowing the user to easily adjust positioning of the user's feet to accommodate movement of the SUP while maintaining an upright stance.
It should be understood that the summary above is provided to introduce in simplified form a selection of concepts that are further described in the detailed description. It is not meant to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, the scope of which is defined uniquely by the claims that follow the detailed description. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.